Alice in Wonderland a personalised book with your child as the hero

Alice was sitting on the riverbank beside her sister on a long, dull summer afternoon, with nothing to do. Her sister was reading a book, but it had no pictures and no conversations in it, and "What is the use of a book," thought Alice, "without pictures or conversations?"

Suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her. The Rabbit took a watch out of its waistcoat pocket, looked at it and said, "Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!" And Alice jumped to her feet, because she had never before seen a rabbit with a waistcoat, or a watch to take out of it.

She ran across the field after it, just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit hole under the hedge. In another moment down went Alice after it, never once thinking how she was going to get out again.

The rabbit hole went straight down, and Alice fell, and fell, and fell. Either the hole was very deep, or she fell very slowly, because she had plenty of time to look about her.

Thump! She landed on a heap of dry leaves, not hurt a bit. She found herself in a long hall lined with doors, but every one of them was locked. On a little glass table lay a tiny golden key, and behind a curtain Alice found a little door, only fifteen inches high. The key fitted it, and through it she could see the loveliest garden you ever saw. But she could not even get her head through the doorway.

Back on the glass table there was now a little bottle with a label that said DRINK ME. Alice drank it, and she began to shrink, smaller and smaller, until she was only ten inches high. "Now I can get through the little door!" she thought. But, oh dear, she had left the golden key up on the table, and she could not reach it.

Under the table she found a little cake marked EAT ME. She ate it, and this time she shot up and up, taller than the trees, until her head bumped the ceiling.

"Curiouser and curiouser!" cried Alice. "Goodbye, feet!"

Poor Alice. She was far too big to get through the door now, and she sat down and cried, great big tears that splashed on the floor, until there was a pool all round her. Then she found a little fan, and fanning herself made her shrink again, so fast that she slipped and fell splash into the pool of her own tears. She swam across it in the company of a very damp Mouse, and they came out on the bank at last, dripping wet.

There was the White Rabbit again, trotting about and muttering, "The Duchess! Oh, my fur and whiskers! Where can I have dropped my gloves?" Alice helped him look, and she found them under a fern. The Rabbit snatched them up and hurried off without even saying thank you.

Off she went into the woods, and there, on top of a large mushroom, sat a big blue Caterpillar, smoking a long pipe.

"Who are you?" said the Caterpillar.

"I hardly know, sir, just at present," said Alice. "I've changed so many times since this morning."

The Caterpillar was not much help, but before it crawled away it told her that one side of the mushroom would make her taller and the other side shorter. Alice kept a piece of each, so that from then on she could be exactly the size she wanted.

A little further on, a Cat with an enormous grin sat in a tree.

"Cheshire Puss," said Alice, "would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"

"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.

"I don't much care where," said Alice.

"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat. And it slowly faded away, beginning with the end of its tail and ending with the grin, which stayed in the air for some time after the rest of it had gone.

Under a tree in front of a house, a long table was laid for tea, and the March Hare and the Hatter were having tea at it, with a sleepy Dormouse squashed between them.

"No room! No room!" they cried when they saw Alice coming.

"There's plenty of room," said Alice, and she sat down in a large armchair at one end.

It was the strangest tea party she had ever been to. The Hatter's watch had stopped at six o'clock, so it was always teatime, and whenever the cups were dirty, everybody just moved round to the next place. The Hatter asked riddles that had no answers, and the Dormouse kept falling asleep in the teapot. At last Alice got up and walked off, and as far as anyone knows, that tea party is still going on.

At last she found her way into the lovely garden. Three gardeners, who were shaped exactly like playing cards, were busy painting white roses red, very fast.

Just then trumpets sounded, and in came the King and Queen of Hearts with the whole court. The Queen looked at the roses, and at the gardeners, and at Alice.

"Off with their heads!" she shrieked.

"Nonsense!" said Alice, very loudly and decidedly, and the Queen was silent.

Then everybody played croquet. The balls were live hedgehogs, the mallets were live flamingos, and the soldiers bent over to make the hoops. The Queen stormed about shouting "Off with his head!" or "Off with her head!" about once a minute. But Alice noticed that nobody's head was ever actually taken off, and she decided that the Queen was far more bark than bite.

Soon afterwards there was a trial about some stolen tarts, and it was all great nonsense.

"Sentence first," cried the Queen, "verdict afterwards!"

"Stuff and nonsense!" said Alice, and by now she had grown back to her full size. "Who cares for you? You're nothing but a pack of cards!"

At this the whole court rose up into the air and came fluttering down on her like a pack of playing cards. Alice tried to brush them off, and just then the White Rabbit hurried past once more.

"This way!" it called. "Oh, my ears and whiskers, how late it's getting!" And it led her straight to the little door and up the long, long rabbit hole, round and round and up and up, until Alice felt the sun on her face.

She opened her eyes, and she was lying on the riverbank with her head in her sister's lap, and her sister was gently brushing some dead leaves from her face.

"Wake up, Alice dear," said her sister. "What a long sleep you've had!"

"Oh, I've had such a curious dream!" said Alice. And she told her sister all about it.